Mark Twain, a Biography. Complete eBook

“Why, my dear sir, a person would
know you are new to Berlin just by your innocent
questions. Our aristocracy, our old, real, genuine
aristocracy, are full of the quaintest eccentricities,
eccentricities inherited for centuries, eccentricities
which they are prouder of than they are of their
titles, and that sign-board there is one of them.
They all hang them out. And it’s regulated
by an unwritten law. A baron is entitled to
hang out two, a count five, a duke fifteen——­”

“Then they are all dukes
over on that side, I sup——­”

“Every one of them.
Now the old Duke of Backofenhofenschwartz not
the present Duke, but the
last but one, he——­”

“Does he live over the
sausage-shop in the cellar?”

“No, the one farther
along, where the eighteenth yellow cat is
chewing the door-mat——­”

“But all the yellow
cats are chewing the door-mats.”

“Yes, but I mean the
eighteenth one. Count. No, never mind;
there’s a lot more come.
I’ll get you another mark. Let me see—–­”

They could not remain permanently in Komerstrasse,
but they stuck it out till the end of December—­about
two months. Then they made such settlement with
the agent as they could—­that is to say,
they paid the rest of their year’s rent—­and
established themselves in a handsome apartment at
the Hotel Royal, Unter den Linden. There was no
need to be ashamed of this address, for it was one
of the best in Berlin.

As for Komerstrasse, it is cleaner now. It is
still not aristocratic, but it is eminently respectable.
There is a new post-office that takes in Number 7,
where one may post mail and send telegrams and use
the Fernsprecher—­which is to say the telephone—­and
be politely treated by uniformed officials, who have
all heard of Mark Twain, but have no knowledge of
his former occupation of their premises.

CLXXVIII

A WINTER IN BERLIN

Clemens, meantime, had been trying to establish himself
in his work, but his rheumatism racked him occasionally
and was always a menace. Closing a letter to
Hall, he said:

“I must stop-my arm
is howling.”

He put in a good deal of time devising publishing
schemes, principal among them being a plan for various
cheap editions of his books, pamphlets, and such like,
to sell for a few cents. These projects appear
never to have been really undertaken, Hall very likely
fearing that a flood of cheap issues would interfere
with the more important trade. It seemed dangerous
to trifle with an apparently increasing prosperity,
and Clemens was willing enough to agree with this
view.

Clemens had still another letter to write for Laffan
and McClure, and he made a pretty careful study of
Berlin with that end in view. But his arm kept
him from any regular work. He made notes, however.
Once he wrote: